Simple Truths: Darkness Brings Forth Light

"For thou wilt light my candle: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness." Psalms 18:28

For a short season of my life, this verse became one of my favorites. I recently read a poem from an Indian martyr that said this:

Truly, living with God is glorious
The darker the night - the closer the dawn
The darker the clouds, the more plentiful the life-giving rains
The narrower the way, the more of God's unlimited help
The greater the troubles, the more the comfort from God
Though the waves get higher, this can never disturb the calms of the depths
Though the storm is violent, it cannot displace the mountain
Those who trust in the Lord are like mountains that cannot be shaken
The person who lives in the shadow of the Almighty will never be disturbed by the heat.

How true that really is! From the beginning of time, one of the beautiful patterns that God has set in place that we, his children, can take hope in is that darkness gives birth to light.

Recently, I've been reading through the lives of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; and it has been amazing to see the way that God has brought light out of their darkness - even just in the smallest of ways. Abraham lost faith in God quite a few times (ex. Gen. 12; Gen 20); his wife, Sarah, laughed when she was told she would have a baby in her old age; yet God provided and Abraham and Sarah had a son. Isaac went through a literal darkness - blindness - and was deceived by his younger son for his blessing; but Isaac's family did not fall apart, and God built an inheritance through  Jacob to become Israel. And Jacob, quite frankly, was a mess. He lied, was lied to, had multiple wives that fought with one another for favor in his eyes, constantly relied in his own strength instead of God's promises, disobeyed the voice of the Lord about going to Bethel, watched his daughter get raped in the land of his disobedience and his sons commit murder - and eventually, with all his favoritism, disobedience, and trust in his own strength - he almost lost his youngest, most precious, son - Joseph. Yet somehow, through all of this.. well.. crap... God sustained Jacob and turned him into a great nation.

God turns darkness into light. Cloudy seasons into understanding. Stormy times into peaceful victories. The days of Jewish captivity resulted in the birth of the world's Messiah. The death on the cross turned into resurrection unto eternal life. There is a promise that these last, dark days will someday turn into the millennial kingdom and eventually the New Jerusalem. Truly, I have only begun to understand the smallest parts of God's promises towards me, but I know this for sure: God has turned darkness into light in multiple occasions.

This is no deep truth; nor is it a lesson you have probably not heard before. But read through the Bible, and look at all the ways God turns darkness into light - starting in Genesis one with creation - and be encouraged that God's plan for you is ultimately one that breaks forth into understanding and blessing! If you find yourself in a season of confusion right now, a season of doubt, or a season of war - know this simple truth: that God will enlighten our darkness!

"For who is God save the Lord? or who is a rock save our God?" Psalms 18:31

The Greatest Goodbye

Many times in life, I best cope with things by writing songs about what I'm going through. This last weekend, I put my girlfriend on a plane to go to her home back in Texas. She's lived there for about a year-and-a-half now, but that doesn't make our goodbyes any easier. We usually see each other two or three times each year - a total of about 20 days. It gets hard at times. Furthermore, she doesn't really enjoy it down there. She has friends and family, whom she loves; but the rich culture of where she lives and the typical complacency of the Christians there makes it a hard place for her to be. As if saying goodbye wasn't hard enough, I have to send her to place where God is growing her by fire. But as I was walking away this time, God began to put a song in my heart. I've found that as hard as pain can be, it always helps me to better understand God's heart and to bring me closer to Him. In this case, I wrote a song about what it must have been like for God to say "goodbye" to Jesus when Christ came to earth. Theologically, the song is probably not very correct. But it's one of those things that's interesting to think about and consider - what was it like for God to say goodbye?

How did manage, Lord, to watch Your Son go?

Into a world that You knew was not His home?

Did you turn Your back when He died because of pain?

And when you cried – was that the thunder and the rain?

How did it feel to watch him walk down from his throne,

Knowing that he’d face death and Hell alone?

What was it like when you kissed the Son goodbye?

Did you fight to let go when you hugged him, did you cry?

Could you hold back your tears when you looked him in the eyes,

And said, “Go, my Son, redeem them all and die?”

For surely, there was never such a sorrowful farewell

Met with joyous singing – as your son went to fight Hell

Even though You knew that it would turn out right

Heavenly Father, what was it like to say goodbye?

And when you sent him to his death

Tell me, did you hold regrets?

Did you tell yourself you shouldn’t have let him go?

And when the Father and the Son

Oh the Godhead, three in one

Was separated – did you shake the world in sorrow?

What was it like when you kissed the Son goodbye?

Did you fight to let go when you hugged him, did you cry?

Could you hold back your tears when you looked him in the eyes,

And said, “Go, my Son, redeem them all and die?”

For surely, there was never such a sorrowful farewell

Met with joyous singing – as your son went to fight Hell

Even though You knew that it would turn out right

Heavenly Father, what was it like to say goodbye?

But through fire and through pain

The world would never be the same

The separation that You faced made the redeemed

And tell me, how did You feel

When Christ ascended out of Hell

And with a shout, You crowned Him as the King?

And what was it like, to be united with Him in victory?

Did You hug Him tight and cry with joy in Glory?

Could you hold back your tears, when you looked him in the eyes,

And said, “Well done, my son, you’ve spread eternal life?”

For truly, there has never been such a joyous hello

Than the day Your Son ascended to his throne

And all the time, God, you knew it would turn out right

And Lord You knew, it was worth it to say goodbye

As I consider the goodbye that Christ faced and had in front of him - I look towards the joyous ending of the story. Whether or not I have a joyous "reuniting" on this earth - I know that God will use it for the best, for His glory, to bring about His kingdom. I don't always get how, but I know He's in control. So Lord, here's my sorrow and my grief, turn them into mourning and dancing - only in Your timing. May Your will be done.

My Dad Could Beat Up Your Dad

John 16:33, "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world."

I always get a good laugh when I hear two little boys arguing about whose dad is stronger:

"MY dad could beat your dad up!"
"No way! My dad's a cop!"
"Oh yeah? Well my dad's in the army!"

The argument goes on and on - but we'll most likely never know whose dad would be stronger. I assume that the majority of grown men tend to not get in fist fights to prove to their sons they're the strongest dad in town.

Although I poke fun at the little guys that do this, I've found that I did the same thing today - only with my heavenly father. Let's just say Paul's message of "we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers of darkness" took on a whole new personal meaning for me. I had been around demonic manifestations before, I'd seen and helped deal with them, I'd even managed a small one myself once, but never had I seen anything like the one I just saw a while ago. When all was said and done in dealing with this wickedness, I walked away with physical bruises along with my spiritual battle scars - and I was exhausted. I had seen a powerful demonic manifestation like this one; but at the same time, I had never felt more confident of God's great love and power. It's like Alyssa said, "If our enemy is that powerful, how powerful must our God be!"

And amen to that! But I was still struggling. I was having a hard time recovering spiritually and emotionally from the battle that I had with the demons in that last manifestation. In so many ways, things kept happening, event after event popped up - seemingly just to make an attempt at discouraging me again. The smallest things from seeing creepy shadows to having to fight off another manifestation from someone else, it was like I just couldn't break free from the battle of this thing.

But praise be to God who remains true to his Biblical character! The psalmist wrote, "He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me" - how amazingly true is this. Not only does God provide us victory in the battle, but also peace and victory from the battle. It was when I realized this great truth that I spoke boldly the words of 1 John 2:13, "I write unto you, young men, because ye have overcome the wicked one" and those words from John 16:33 became more powerful than ever before - Jesus has overcome!

As I prayed over this truth, an unsaved friend of mine stopped me and randomly said, "I had the weirdest dream about you last night!" Turns out, her dream was a prophetic picture of how God had used me the day before, and a prophetic foreshadowing of the purpose. Hallelujah! For though the principalities of darkness work in fear and in bitterness - only my God can perform works such as these! I suddenly found myself acting like those little boys bragging about their dads being the strongest, "Look at my Daddy! Look at my God!"

And my Daddy is this most powerful! Jesus said it, "All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth." This truth is still truth today - and everyday. Lord, let us live in the love of God that delivers us through the battle, sets us above the battle, and places us in a position of victory - we are the overcoming saints of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Use It or Lose It

"But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves." - James 1:22

Ever think you know something pretty well only to find out that you really don't know anything at all? I'll never forget some of my greatest blunders with this - Chinese. I was preparing to go on a missions trip to China, and I wanted to be prepared - so I studied, I read, I wrote, I even talked some in preparation for this difficult language; and I was prepared, or so I thought. The first day I arrived in China, I got off that plane, met my Chinese contacts, looked them in the eye, and then they spoke... gibberish. I couldn't make out any of it. I tried speaking back, and received blank stares in response. Let's just say there was a pretty big communication barrier until they found someone that spoke English - the next day. Although the rest of my time in China didn't reflect this experience; this was definitely a bad foot to get off on.

Well, to be completely honest, one of my biggest problems with learning the Chinese language was that I was to shy to try speaking it outside of class (to other ACTUAL Chinese speakers) back in America. I never really had practice outside of sitting in my little room attempting to say phrases that - quite frankly - were said wrong. I had this head knowledge of what the character looked like, what the phonetic spelling was, how each of the letters sounded and what THEIR phonetic spellings were, even where the diphthong was going to be placed - but practically, this was utterly useless. I didn't know how to put all of these things together and actually speak like the Chinese did; I didn't live out this knowledge of Chinese. And even though I THOUGHT I had it figured out; because I didn't use this knowledge, well, I lost it.

Sadly, I've found myself treating Christianity the same way sometimes. Why do I spend so much time studying, learning, and figuring out things in scripture that I refuse to actually live out and practice in my everyday life? Or maybe I read and learn about them and then choose to ignore them. Well, bad news for me: spiritual knowledge works a bit like my Chinese! Use it or lose it.

Luke 8:16-18 says, "No man, when he hath lighted a candle, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a bed; but setteth it on a candlestick that they which enter in may see the light. For nothing is secret, that shall not be made manifest; neither any thing hid, that shall not be known and come abroad. Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given; and whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he seemeth to have."

When we have an encounter with Christ, we should be like the man with the candle. We don't cover or hide this knew spiritual knowledge and divine encounter, we're supposed to set it up on a candlestick. However, so many of us don't do that. We take what we hear in church, what we read in the Bible - and we put it in our box of spiritual knowledge to be pulled out when we need to make a good argument. The biggest problem with this is that this isn't active knowledge! Truth in the Bible is very active: look at John 16:13, "Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will shew you things to come."

So the Spirit actively guides us into all truth; he readily helps us to understand the Word that we read and hear and then to live it out in our lives. But if we just set our knowledge of God aside, and don't even make an attempt to live it out - we actually lose our understanding of it. The last verse of the Luke 8 passage says that we need to be careful how we listen - how we understand the word of God. Similarly, James 1:22 tells us to not just be hearers, but doers of the word. The consequence that each passage presents is very similar as well: if we aren't careful to listen and understand correctly (which means applying it to our lives), then spiritual knowledge will actually be taken away from us; and if we don't live what we learn like James says, we actually deceive ourselves into thinking we understand what the Bible is saying.

I deceived myself with Chinese. I was convinced I knew it based on my study and adherence to grammar rules - but not the applicable, living out of the language. I know I've done this thousands of times with Christianity as well - learning the knowledge and not living it out. Spiritual knowledge is active, it changes and deepens as our relationship with God grows; and our relationship with God gets better as we obey what he has to say to us. There is definitely a blessing attached! For Luke 8 tells us that whoever "has" - whoever listens correctly and lives it out, to him will be given more; a greater understanding of God; deepness in their Christian walk, and intimacy in their fellowship. Overall, it's a choice. Live out our knowledge and get closer to God; don't live it out, and we get further away. Use it or lose it.